During negotiations of the numbered treaties between Canada’s First Nations and the Canadian government, Alexander Mackenzie, second prime minister, was quoted in 1873 as saying, “We have on several occasions discussed the Indian position. I never doubted that our true policy was to make friends of them, even at a considerable cost, as anything is cheaper than an Indian war.” This is an honourable statement from a man who likely meant to act honourably, and Canada’s proud tradition as peacemakers, turning to treaty rather than war, is part of our nation’s collective memory.

We’ve seen again and again in our contemporary news headlines, that what a politician said and meant to do and what the practical realities of politics, budgets, and voters’ voices will impose on that politician are another thing completely. As Sheldon Krasowski makes clear repeatedly in his book on Treaties 1 through 7, No Surrender: The Land Remains Indigenous (U of Regina Press, $27.95), however honourably some politicians meant to act when negotiating the numbered treaties, the realities today for First Nations people bear out the fact that, as the author puts it, Canada did not act honourably.

No Surrender is an academic book from an academically trained historian born in Saskatoon and partially educated here. His book is packed with examples, leans often on scholarly precedent, and is replete with footnotes. That’s not to say, in some stereotypical fashion, that it is unreadable, another tome lowered from the ivory tower. All academics make sure they’ve got safeguards built into their argument and they make sure that their points are made fastidiously — that often means repeating themselves. But in the same way that James Daschuk’s Clearing the Plains and J.R. Miller’s Residential Schools and Reconciliation are academic works, yet should be essential reading for all treaty people — and we all are — Krasowski’s No Surrender is necessary to an understanding of the way Canada’s treaty negotiators operated and what that did to the future for all Canadians.

Like all good bargainers, both sides in the treaty negotiations wanted to get the best deal they could, and Krasowski is firm in his thesis that, despite many long-held beliefs in white society, the treaties are not only about what is written on paper. He goes to many lengths to show that what was agreed to orally — annuity payments, bestowing of farm implements and necessary instruction to go with them, schools on reserves, the eventual medicine bundle, and, most contentiously, the ceding of lands — and what eventually appeared written on the treaty documents themselves were often quite different from one another.

In order for the Canadian government to open up land for settlers, the cross-country railroad, and a message to the U.S. that their Manifest Destiny and their whiskey traders weren’t welcome here, its most pressing need was to get the First Nations to cede title to the land. Contrary to another long-held myth that the chiefs were lost in some sort of cultural mist and didn’t realize they were signing away their land, Krasowski argues persuasively that they knew exactly who owned the land — they did — and they’d be crazy to give it away for a new suit of clothes and a medal. As Chief Poundmaker put it straight to Alexander Morris during the Treaty 6 negotiations, “this is our land! It isn’t a piece of pemmican to be cut off and given in little pieces back to us. It is ours and we will take what we want.”

Indeed, the chiefs in Manitoba during the Treaty 1 negotiations originally believed that the reserves would be for the white settlers and the First Nations people would still have the run of most of their land, land that was only ever meant to be shared.

Krasowski gives evidence again and again that the pattern of negotiations for the government side was to play up the benefits of treaty — annuities, schools, agricultural help — and play down, if even mention, the ceding of lands. Often the translators brought in to help supposed mutual understanding actually hindered the First Nations’ side by softening what the government was asking for and doing the same when the chiefs stuck resolutely to their position on holding their land. They didn’t want to cause obvious friction for either side. Not a good strategy in the long run.

And, much to the dismay of the chiefs as the negotiations moved west, the promises made with the first treaties were not kept in a timely or full fashion. One man claimed he was sick and couldn’t get the money and tools to the people to whom they’d been promised. Though it isn’t in Krasowski’s book, we know that recently Chief Poundmaker was exonerated for his part in the looting of stores at Fort Battleford in the winter of 1884-85 when his starving people couldn’t get the food they were promised. What was promised orally by Canada’s negotiators and what made it into the written text of the treaty, often not read back accurately to the chiefs, were at odds with each other. As in the case of Treaty 7 in Alberta, the chiefs thought they were signing a peace treaty and indicating their approval of the work of the NWMP.

According to No Surrender, the Canadian negotiators, for example, promised to help preserve the bison herds, even as they knew there was no government will to do so. And we all know what happened to the school on every reserve promise, meant, so said Morris, to “teach the cunning of the white man.” That cunning brought in residential schools and their dark fallout. Alexander Mackenzie said a “considerable price” was worth it to be friends and engage in treaties with First Nations people. By the time of Treaty 7, he was “facing increasing pressure to stem escalating costs in the North-West,” so one of his negotiator’s “frugality appealed” to him.

“Canada did not act honourably,” concludes Krasowski at the end of No Surrender. It made promises it either didn’t keep or knew it couldn’t keep, and it purposely misrepresented its position in negotiations, particularly the contentious point about ceding of lands. Once it had on paper what it wanted, it stuck doggedly to that written word, ignoring the realities of an oral culture and its excellent and persistent memory. We are being made very aware of those realities today.